I think the mother, by and large, represents a patriarchal society; the story opens with a whole laundry list of, well, laundry for starters, and a bunch of other chores a woman needs to know how to do in order to keep house, which is essential to a society that considers women subordinate to men and "homemakers" in general. The story is composed wholly of a stream of advice and do's and don'ts, which kind of mirrors society's constant pressuring of women through subliminal and explicit messaging. And there are rules for every little situation a woman may or may not find herself in--things a man wouldn't even think of. 
We can also note an underlying fear in the mother's barrage of advice: a fear of her daughter becoming a "slut." Isn't that something society also fears? Present-day society is no different in its hatred for sexually liberated women. 

In a strange and sort of dark way, I find humor in the fact that the mother teaches the daughter how to make a potion to voluntarily produce a miscarriage after she has scorned the daughter multiple times during the course of her stream of advice for being 'bent on becoming a slut.' 
Based on the daughter's unconventional antics, she definitely thinks the daughter must end up in a situation with an unwanted pregnancy out of wedlock (something people looked down on back then and thought only "loose women" or "sluts" could do). She's thus prompted to include this piece of advice by the end of it. It's as if she thinks the daughter won't heed any of her advice and yet continues to go on to give it.